To speed up your process follow these instructions on how to make a machining document template for a given machining center.
Accessing your Templates
To start creating a machining document template, you should first open either your personal My Templates Project or the My Company Templates project (if you are using a full PDM server).
My Templates are exclusively accessible to you, while Company Templates (on a full PDM server) can be accessed by all TopSolid users connected to your PDM server.
The steps below outline how to open the My Templates project. (If you are on a PDM server, you will also see My Company Templates as an option).
Adding/Checking your reference libraries
Afterwards, it is essential to verify that the library housing your machine definition is referenced in the Template project. This can be accomplished by expanding the References node.
If your library is not referenced, right-mouse click on the References node and select Reference library.
If your library is already referenced you can skip ahead to the next step by clicking here.
In the dialog box that appears, you will need to browse and select the library that contains your machine definition. Once selected, click on the green check mark to validate the selection, as shown in the image below.
Creating a machining document template
At this point, you can now create your machining document template.
It is recommended to make folders in this project to help organize your templates.
In the image to the right you see a sample of such folders.
To create a folder, just right-mouse click on the name of the project and choose Folder from the contextual menu.
Rename the folder so that it makes sense. In this case, as you are creating a machining document template, why not call it Machining.
Folders are sorted alpha-numerically (just like in Windows). So if you want to control the order of folders, simply put a number at the beginning of the name. This will allow you to control the order of sorting!
To create a template, right-mouse click on the Machining folder that you just created and choose Machining from the contextual menu.
In the dialog box that appears, select Blank Template and then select the green check box to validate.
Next browse to the Equipment tab and select the Select a machine command.
Now select the machine you want to load by following these steps.
- Make sure the Machine source is set to Libraries
- Browse to and select the machine you want to load
- Validate
Rename the machining file so that it makes sense. In this sample, we selected a 2 channel CTX Gamma 2000 TC.
To rename a file or folder in a project, you can select the object and hit the F2 key, do a slow double left click, or right-mouse click and choose rename from the contextual menu.
Optional Step
Optionally, if you want to pre-load tooling or add fixtures you can do so now. Please note that in order to load library objects like tooling and fixtures you need to reference those libraries in the template project as well.
Check in your template
The last step will be to check in the template you just created. Checking a file into the vault protects the minor revision and if working on a PDM server, makes that file available to all users.
Once you have checked in your template, close the My Template (or My Company Template) project so that you don't accidentally start working in that project.
Using your template
To use your template, either start a new project or open an existing project.
Right-mouse button click on the folder where you want to create a machining document.
Select Machining from the contextual menu.
In the dialog box that appears follow these steps.
- Expand My Templates.
- Expand Machining.
- Select your machining template.
- Validate.
Congratulations! You have now used your template!